Plans are underway by the Federal Government to organise a Structured Assessment-Based Training Programme (SMAT-P) and Leadership Enhancement and Development Programme (LEAD-P) for 25,000 civil servants before the end of 2020.

The Federal Government said that in line with this agenda, the first and second batch of 3,500 civil servants will be trained in May 2019.Head of Service, Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita dropped the hint while unveiling the findings of the Training Needs Assessment (TNA) at a meeting with Chief Executive Officers of Manpower Development Institutions (MDIs) in Abuja.

Oyo-Ita said it has become necessary for civil servants to undergo training and retraining as current findings of a survey showed that their skills deficiency is alarming, saying past trainings did not meet the peculiar needs of the public service.She stated that the TNA survey was administered on 1,076 civil servants between grade levels 7-17, out of which 670 responded.

The HOS said that this is the first time stakeholders will be gathering to do a detailed analysis of what the needs of civil servants are according to their own interpretation. According to her, “all along, the trainings that have been done have always come from outside or more or less imposed on us. But now, civil servants were given an opportunity through a survey programme.

‘’From the findings we got, we have discovered that the notions and preconceptions that people have about civil servants are wrong. A good number of civil servants are quite computer literate. The kind of trainings they need should be such that will match their areas of specialty. A lot of civil servants after the initial training they get when coming in, they are left like that. Even when they are promoted, they are not offered further training.”